The Grievor’s urine tested positive for cannabis metabolites following an incident. The Employer required him to attend an examination with an employer-selected physician, submit to a year of random drug tests, and suspended him for 10 days. The Arbitrator held that none of the Employer’s actions were justified and ordered that the Grievor be made whole, including by awarding $15,000 in privacy damages.
CMAW, Local 506 Marine and Shipbuilders v. Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd (“P.Q.” Grievance), 2021 CanLII 138047
The Union grieved the imposition of a 10-day suspension for refusing a drug and alcohol test and the requirement to attend an IME.
The arbitrator held that in the circumstances, including the Employer’s automatic imposition of a 10-day suspension in every case of a positive test or refusal to test, a 6-day suspension was appropriate. On the IME issue, the Arbitrator emphasized that such exams are “extremely invasive” and before initiating one, an employer must inquire into less intrusive methods of obtaining information, and must only seek information that is reasonably necessary, which it had not done here. The Grievor was awarded $5000 in privacy damages.
Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. v. CMAW, Local 506 Marine and Shipbuilders (“J.S.” Grievance) (unreported)
The Union successfully argued that the Employer was not justified in conducting post-incident testing of the grievor. The arbitrator held that slowly driving a forklift to within 3-5 feet of another person before stopping and alerting them was not a “significant incident”. In any event, the Employer had failed to sufficiently investigate the incident.
Read the decision here.
Canada Post Corporation v. Canadian Union of Postal Workers, 2020 BCSC 503
Tamara Ramusovic and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully defended a judicial review petition seeking to overturn a labour arbitrator’s decision. The BC Supreme Court dismissed the employer’s petition for reason of undue delay in filing the petition with the Court. Although there were no applicable statutory timeframes for the filing of the petition, we successfully argued that in the circumstances of the case, the employer’s delay in seeing judicial relief was unreasonable and undermined the proper functioning of labour dispute resolution in general, and the parties’ contractual choices about how to resolve their disputes under their collective agreement.
Lhoist North America of Canada Inc. v. Cement, Lime and Gypsum Division of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Lodge D486 (Belanger Termination), December 14, 2019 (unreported) (Gregory)
Tamara Ramusovic and Natasha Edgar, on behalf of the Union, successfully grieved the termination of the grievor for sleeping on the job. The arbitrator ordered the grievor reinstated to his previous position.
Air Canada v. British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal), 2018 BCCA 387
Langley (Township) v. Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 403, 2017 BCCA 1
The employer sought to terminate disabled employees thereby removing their access to benefits. Having lost the original arbitration decision the employer appealed that decision to the BC Court of Appeal. We argued that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal and the court agreed. The matter was remitted to the Labour Relations Board.